Category: History

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Summer Program for the Enhancement of Basic Education

I went to SPEBE at UH and they treated us like college kids. Probably the wrong thing to do. I kept Strawberry Hill in my room refrigerator. This is 1986. My cousin came and we binge watched before that was a thing. We saw Top Gun. I feel the need. The need for speed. Then we watched Karate Kid 2 two times in a row. Peter Cetera. And it was filmed by my house in Kahaluʻu. Then I drank two bottles of that Strawberry Hill. Then I puked. Like really puked. Like the first time you drink puked. Like Linda Blair puked. And then Tūtū died that weekend. And the day I got back, I got 100 on my exam. The next highest was 96. So I’m at least four better than everyone else. I don’t feel four better.

Last week, I was reading People Español at Supercuts. And I was reading it for 10 minutes before I realized it was in Spanish. It took those minutes before I was puzzled by a word. Then i remembered slang. Ya me voy. I’m going.

I met one person this week. One new person. I told her the Spanish story. She said that’s peculiar, I like peculiar people. I felt guilty. Because she liked me.

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Pā mai nei ka lā ma koʻu ili

I am fucking consumed with optimism, ambition, and a sense of purpose. And anger. I went to the heiau again, and the sun was drowning me in yellow rays of hope. Pā mai nei ka lā ma koʻu ʻili. Whatever isn’t forbidden is compulsory. Heads will roll, and storms will follow. But in this moment, I rule myself, and the world lies before me. And what I do next has to make a difference. Because until this moment, I have pissed on what was given to me. I make the same mistake over and over again. I know the wall is hard, but I can put my hard head through it this time. I miss my kids, and I love every single person I have ever loved. Aloha for me is not something that goes away. Not with betrayal. Not with lies. Certainly not with disappointment. Aloha means love among many other things. You don’t need to know ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi to know what it means. It’s that feeling in your chest when you pick up your daughter after her first day of kindergarten. It’s the smile that beams when you buy an unhoused kupuna a sandwich. I’m rambling, but my point is it’s all connected. Hewa in the right hand becomes hewa in the left. Aloha spreads the same way. You can’t keep it until you freely give it away.

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Kaumaha

So tired. So angry. So tired of being angry. This program exhausts me. The only thing I can say against it is that itʻs too much sometimes. When you preach to the choir, theyʻre listening already. Who is this for? Everyone in this class chose to be here. The way they say “white;” the anger is palpable. We needed a radical in 1993. It was so brave to say, ʻWe are not American. We will never be American. I am not an American.” I have hoahānau that served in the U.S. military. What do I do about that? I went home to Oʻahu last month and I bristled constantly. “Thatʻs not how you say that. Thereʻs a kahakō. That place is not Yokes. Itʻs Keawaʻula.” No oneʻs going to call it that. Part of me, when I watch this, makes the argument, “Sanskrit is dead. Latin is dead. Hawaiian is alive.” And if it is alive then Yokes gets to be a part of the conversation. Then I go to the palace. Iʻve walked those hallowed grounds so many times. Iʻve looked out the window of that empty room where they kept her. Promulgate a new constitution. Her intent before she was betrayed. I didnʻt even know that word. Promulgate. Iʻm getting angry again. Why didnʻt she listen to Charles Wilson? Arrest three traitors and take a gamble that America wonʻt send the calvary to save these descendants of missionaries and suger barons.

I went to a gathering on Lā Kūʻokoʻa. What is ea? What does it men today? Ua huhū au nō. Kaumaha. So heavy. Sadness is correctly described in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi as heavy. I could write about this until you say, “Stop!” But it all comes ʻround again and again. Venezuela. Greenland. Ukraine. It’s all the same fucking day, man.

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Ozzy

Here’s the secret about Ozzy and about life. He didn’t write the songs. Those are Ozzy songs. He wrote none. Iommi. Lemmy, So many lessons. The smallest of which is, if you care, youre not looking where you’re supposed to look. A lot of him was an affect. What did you expect? He came from nowhere, They gave him everything. Everything. He made it 79 years. I have nothing. Iʻm trying as hard as I can to see 60.

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Lā Kūʻokoʻa

Today, November 28, is the day that the independence of the Hawaiian Kingdom is “celebrated.” I vacillate about how I feel about this. My natural tendency is to be skeptical about arbitrary (i.e., man-made) constructs of “nation,” or even “independence” as it is used in this context. Independent from exactly whom or what? The kānaka of ko pae ʻāina were here for millennia before the European and American colonial powers happened upon us. In 1843, their recognition that nā aupuni kahiko already existed, that a real Lāhui already was flourishing in a place that they “discovered” was an external recognition. We already knew who we were. Kauikeaouliʻs attempt to diplomatically protect Hawaiʻi from the onslaught of impending imperialism was not a declaration of independence. It was an identification to the world. And in the end, it only delayed the dam break of change brought on by disease, capitalist-driven greed, corruption, and the ideas of Euro-American (aka white) superiority.

The recognition of independence was militarily usurped by America when it became convenient and beneficial to do so, and summarily ignored by Europe. What is there to celebrate from this legacy?

Here is where I vacillate. Because I do celebrate Lā Kūʻokoʻa. I celebrate the intricate, aloha ʻāina-based society that was already independent. I celebrate a society that was able to support a population (comparable in size to what exists today) with innovative, sustainable methods of land, water, and resource management, food independence, and spirituality. Modern Hawaiʻi, with all of its modern technology, would starve in less than a month if the ships and planes stopped coming. I celebrate the Lāhui that has survived every effort, both natural and invasive, to eradicate it. I celebrate the resurgence of ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi to a degree that was unimaginable (with the exception of some very special kānaka mākua). I celebrate what I see happening on social media; Kānaka TikTok is a vibrant, living community. I celebrate the new ways of teaching at every level, from preschool to university. I celebrate that we now acknowledge the diaspora and are actively looking for ways to bring people home. (I was away for 25 years, and there were times I thought I would never come back.) I celebrate that I feel pilina to everything I am trying to describe.

Our kūʻokoʻa is not given to us by recognition from any “other.” Our kūʻokoʻa, our ea, exist in us. They exist in the Lāhui. They exist in the aupuni, in whatever form it has come to take in 2025. Kānaka maoli came very close to extinction. I celebrate that this did not happen. I celebrate the future, a future I did not even know was possible. That future is now.

Aloha Lā Kūʻokoʻa.